, what form Lamson's
bank story was taking, and to what store the orders were sent for
redemption. The fires were low and the valley was still when he sought
his father's house and slept.

The next morning he resumed the dress of the white man. It was a day
spent in the saddle. He rode from store to store, from ranch to ranch
and warehouse to warehouse, the length and breadth of the valley,
questioning, listening, brisk, businesslike, and polite, in all respects
the decorous representative of the white man's bank. Yet, as he stood
that evening at the white man's telephone, and recounted to his cashier
the facts he had learned, the gleam in his eyes and the pride in his
heart were those of the young red warrior who has tracked his foe and
makes report to the high chiefs of his tribe. He concluded by asking his
cashier to telegraph to St. Louis and the other hop markets and
ascertain the probable trend of hops, and telephone him in the morning.

And then Kitsap, the clerk, donned the tribal finery of his ancestors
and again The Coyote prowled among the camp-fires. At each he dropped a
faggot for thought:

"Lamson, the biggest hop rancher in the valley, is buying hops at
fourteen cents and paying his pickers with store orders. That's why he
lied about the bank."

The pickers buzzed the news about the fires till the overseers heard it;
the overseers bore the tale to the ranchers; the ranchers went to their
telephones and set the tale to flashing. In the morning, when the valley
rose to resume picking, Lamson's raid was in cold type in the Seattle
papers and at eight o'clock Lamson himself read it. Then he realized
that the pool had been betrayed, and he went on the war-path to find the
mysterious Indian.

Kitsap rose late, and loitered about, gossiping with the idle, till ten
o'clock. Then he called up the bank. The cashier had received a wire
from the East.

"Hops opened in St. Louis at sixteen cents, Milwaukee sixteen cents,
Cincinnati seventeen cents," said the cashier over the telephone. "Crop
reports indicate light yield abroad and heavy demand on American hops.
Rise in price certain. I have asked a Seattle broker to cable Liverpool.
The president says to spread the news and call me again at four
o'clock."

Then Kitsap mounted his own spotted cayuse and rode from ranch to ranch
till every Indian planter on the reservation had heard his news:

"The _biyu tyee_ of the money house sends greetings. Hops are seven